The present invention relates to an intermediate gear device for a traction drive (i.e. a belt drive or chain drive) and/or spur gear drive of an internal combustion engine, having an intermediate gear that has an at least two-track construction having a drive gear and a driven gear, an axle, and a needle bearing by which the intermediate gear is radially mounted on the axle, at least one supporting disk on which the intermediate gear is axially supported, and a duct, connectable to the lubricant circuit of the internal combustion engine, for supplying lubricant to the needle bearing.
In particular, internal combustion engines in a V configuration have control assemblies in which the camshafts are not driven immediately by the crankshaft, but rather by so-called intermediate gears. These gears connect the drive at the side of the crankshaft to the driven part at the side of the camshaft, and are fashioned with a drive gear and, depending on the design of the internal combustion engine, with one or more driven gears, in a two-track or multi-track design.
For example, DE 103 43 469 A1 discloses a control assembly having two two-track intermediate gears, the drive gears and driven gears thereof being fashioned as chain gears of the chain drive that drives at the crankshaft side, or of the chain drives that are driven at the camshaft side.
The article “Der 6,0-1-V12-TDI-Motor von Audi” (The 6.0 L V12 TDI Engine from Audi) published in the automotive engineering journal MTZ, 10/2008, indicates a control assembly that uses a three-track intermediate gear to drive the two chain drives to the camshafts. The drive of the intermediate gear at the crankshaft side takes place via spur gears.
An intermediate gear device of the type noted above is disclosed in U.S. 2005/0076869 A1. The intermediate gear, which here has a two-track construction, and which in this case comprises a chain gear at the crankshaft side as drive gear and a spur gear at the camshaft side as driven gear, is radially mounted by a needle bearing on the axle fastened to the internal combustion engine, and is axially supported at both sides on support disks threaded onto the axle. In order to supply lubricant to the needle bearing, the axle is connected to the lubricant supply system of the internal combustion engine and is provided with radial transverse bores that connect the bearing raceway region of the axle to a blind bore in the axle that contains lubricant.